The Selfish Pig's Guide to Caring - Softcover

Marriott, Hugh

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0954423313 ISBN 13: 9780954423315

Publisher: Polperro Heritage Press, 2003

Synopsis

Six million people in the UK provide unpaid care for disabled or elderly relatives or neighbours. Their job is long, loney and hard, yet they are largely unnoticed and there is limited support and no formal training. As a result, carers suffer frequent damage to physical and mental health. Oddly, though carers are, by definition, anything but selfish pigs, they are prone to feelings of guilt, largely brought on by fatigue and isolation. Author Hugh Marriott, himself a long-term carer, has written this book for them. His aim is to bring into the open everything he wished he had been told when he first thought of becoming a carer. The book airs such topics as sex, thoughts of murder, coping with incontinence, and dealing with the responses of friends and officials who fail to understand.

About this title

About the Author

Around the time symptoms of Huntington's Disease began to appear in their lives, Hugh and Cathie Marriott sold their house, bought a sailing boat, and embarked on what was to become a nine-year voyage of discovery. By the time Cathie could no longer get in or out of their small dinghy or safely clamber on board their boat, they had visited 40 countries and sailed almost the whole way round the world. After moving ashore again Hugh settled down to write about the experiences of both parts of the voyage. In this book he describes the reasons for setting sail, the difficulties of adjusting simultaneously to a new life and the onset of a debilitating disease, and the responses of the people they encountered in other boats and other lands.

From the Inside Flap

Pig: a term of abuse; esp. a disagreeable, obstinate or unpleasant person. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

There are people who cheerfully sacrifice time and freedom to care for another human being. They eagerly embrace the onerous task of caring, and are never known to complain about their lot. These people are saints, and this book is not for them.

There are others who are paid to care. Their job is hard and the money not always very generous. Even so, it is a job, and therefore something which can be walked away from at the end of every day. Dedicated workers they may be, but this book is not for them either.

There are others of us who have come reluctantly to caring. We feel bad about our unwillingness, and secretly think of ourselves as selfish pigs. Like pigs in nature, we can be of either sex. Also like real pigs, we are not necessarily, or at least always, disagreeable and unpleasant. But we re certainly obstinate. This book is for us.

Edition details

• Publisher: Polperro Heritage Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0954423313
• ISBN 13: 9780954423315
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Lock David
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 350